A standard continuous press comprises upper and lower heated plates, upper and lower intake plates projecting on the intake side and designed to form an intake mouth with an intake gap, and steel press belts continuously circulating in the upper press part and lower press part, the press belts being supported on the intake plates and heated plates on an array of roller rods, wherein the intake gap height of the intake gap, and optionally the intake shape of the intake plates, are set, and wherein a particle mat, which is produced in a deposition station provided upstream of the press is optionally pretreated and has a defined mat height and a defined mat density or defined weight per unit of surface area, is fed into the continuous press and pressed. To this end, there is the possibility that the particle mat in the intake mouth is precompressed in a precompression zone upstream of the intake plates down to an intake gap height h0 and subsequently pressed widths the intake plates and finally of the heated plates. The intake gap height within the context of the invention means the height of the pressing gap, or the intake gap, widths the front edge of the upper and/or lower intake plates, or widths the axis or shaft of the upper and/or lower insertion wheel for the roller rods. Engineered wood panels within the context of the invention means in particular flakeboard panels (such as MDFs), particle panels, or also OSBs (oriented strand panel). The intake plates are preferably configured as heatable intake plates. Furthermore, they are preferably highly flexible intake plates, the upper intake plate and/or the lower intake plate being acted upon by a plurality of piston-cylinder assemblies for setting the intake shape.
Methods for producing engineered wood panels in continuous presses are known in a wide variety of embodiments. There is always the need to manufacture engineered wood panels in is flawless quality as economically as possible. For this reason, in a known method, or a known press of the type described above, the particle mat is already precompressed in a precompression zone upstream of the intake plates such that the heated intake plates are then available across their entire widths for building the temperature pressure in the particle mats, because excess air has already been driven out in the precompression zone. To this end, the precompression zone is formed by portions of the steel press belts that are supported on plain rollers, or belt supporting rollers, that are provided upstream of the intake plates and here can assume the function of press rollers (see DE 102 14 322 [US 20030213380). The measures known in this respect have generally been successfully applied.
In order to avoid damage to the press during operation, that the compression must be limited in the region of a potential precompression. For this reason, in practical experience care has been taken that the intake gap height does not drop below a defined minimum value, this minimum value being preselected based on the mat height of the fed chip mat (for example, 75% of the mat height).
Furthermore, a system for producing engineered wood panels is known where the upper heatable intake plate is divided into plate sections to form articulated joints such that the intake shape of the intake mouth in the articulated regions has bending points. A displacement-measuring system that measures the chip/fiber mat height by way of a displacement sensor and forwards it to a processor, is connected upstream of the intake system. The measured value is the controlled variable for the hydraulic actuators for the upper intake plate sections (see DE 43 01 594 [U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,810).